County Court ratifies
Saturday, March 17, 2007 11:47 PM PDT
denial on TVRR appeal
Larry Meyer Argus Observer
VALE
With little fanfare and as expected, the Malheur County Court Wednesday ratified its earlier tentative decision to deny the appeal of Concerned Citizens of Malheur County regarding the Malheur County Planning and Zoning Commission’s approval of Treasure Valley Renewable Resources site review application for its proposed bio-refinery.
The court had made the tentative decision to scuttle the appeal two weeks ago after a short hearing during a regular court meeting. Concerned Citizens is challenging the site of the proposed bio-refinery. The bio-refinery is scheduled to be constructed at a location south of Ontario, near Alameda Drive.
Wednesday, the court reviewed the opinion and decision document supporting the vote to uphold the planning commission, prepared by county staff, and adopted it on a motion by Malheur County Commissioner Louis Wettstein.
Jon Beal, county planner, said he could issue a zoning permit to TVRR in a couple of weeks. He said the company has received its air quality permit, wastewater quality permit and well permit but still needed a site review and permit from the county environmental health officer for a septic system and drain field.
There is a 21-day period for appeals to be filed on the court decision with the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, Beal said, but an appeal would not preclude him from issuing a zoning permit. In denying the appeal the court found the change in process was not a change in the type of use.
Concerned Citizens said, in its major argument, the manufacture of ethanol using the gasification process is a different use and activity than the ones initially recognized by the Goal 3 Exception. CCMC asserted the outright permitted uses include agricultural product processing and farm use. The group asserted using a gasification process, instead of fermentation, is no longer an agricultural use and requires a new exceptions process for the zone change.
The court’s opinion is TVRR will be processing the same raw materials of wheat, corn and barley into the same byproducts of starch, protein, and fiber to create fuel ethanol. Although acknowledging the variation in technology, the court opinion said the M-3 Zone, Goal 3 exception, Comprehensive Plan amendment and five conditions of approval do not limit the technology or methodology or how agriculture products will be processed.
“We do not define agriculture products processing to be limited to fermentation or other biological processing,” the opinion said.
Steve Penn, a member of CCMC, said Wednesday he would have no comment until he saw the court’s decision.
“I would like to see what they did,” he said. He said the group would likely decide its next step after reviewing the court’s position.
“For me, that is good news,” Rick Minster, Oregon Department of Economic and Community Development Department, John Day, said of the court’s decision. “This should be a good education for the public — the need for industrial properties.”
